Monday, July 9, 2012

Hello! Today is my stop on the Generation Q Magazine blog tour. Naturally, I'm going to give you an inside look at the real world behind the making of a great quilting magazine. For those of you who may be coming here today from other blogs, I am the Creative Director of GenQ Magazine and I am responsible for all the design and layout. I also write a humor column. I am supposed to be writing one right now, but all I can think to write about is what it's like to agree to be a stop on a blog tour but be so frazzled with trying to get a second issue in before deadline that all you can think to write about is being frazzled with trying to get a second issue in before deadline. Killer satire, that's my stock-in-trade.

You know, people ask me all the time, "What's it like being the creative director of a quilting and sewing lifestyle magazine?" And I tell them all the same thing: GLAM. O. ROUS.

Check it:

This is pretty much how I look all the time now, what with the fans stalking my every move.

Designing the first issue of GenQ was pretty much several weeks of intense clicking. If any of you have ever done hours and hours of computer graphics, you will know what I am talking about. Your spine becomes permanently hunched, your eyes constantly bloodshot. From carpal tunnel, I can no longer actually feel my right index finger, but the middle finger makes up for it by now constantly throbbing with arthritis. And we're not even going to talk about what has happened to my butt, because we may have guests here today.

So, no. While my life is pretty much all champagne and men sending me photos of themselves shirtless, the process of creating the magazine was all like this:

And this:

And a whole lotta this:

But it was all totally worth it. Cause I made it look like this:

And this:

And this:

We are not just a project magazine, though we do have plenty of great project patterns. We have articles about all kinds of things, from a shop that specializes in recycled fabrics and other sewing items to a piece on Pinterest to a wonderful profile of Amy and David Butler that everyone has been raving about. There's a list of 25 great online fabric shops with a detailed description of just what makes each one so great. Our Trendology feature is a place where we'll focus on some particular aspect of our stitchy world and give you resources and tips and projects for it. Our first Trendology was about linen, and I think it's one of my favorite sections of the whole magazine.

You know, I say it all the time, but I never imagined when I started teaching myself to quilt back in 2008, that I would end up just a few years later designing—not quilts—but an entire quilting magazine, one that I am intensely proud of. I work with amazing people: Jake Finch, Melissa Thompson Maher, and Scott Hansen and I can truthfully say that we are building a product and a business that promises to be truly unique in this industry.

So would you like one? I am giving away three copies to three oh-so-lucky readers. Just leave a comment, and when I am able to pry my arthritic claws off the mouse, I will choose three random people then Jake and her Mail Goddess will send them each a copy. Giveways are the best when I don't have to do the actual mailing!

There's only one more stop on the tour tomorrow and that's the FabTalk blog. Then on the 11th, we'll be celebrating our first anniversary over on the GenQ blog. We'll be reminiscing about the past year and talking about how far we've come. I'm pretty sure there will be references to my arthritis and my ever-widening butt, so you really don't want to miss it!

UPDATE: Generation Q Magazine is not yet available in book stores. It can be found at a number of local quilt shops and online shops (go here to see a list) or, if all those are sold out or not in your area, you can go directly to our website here and purchase. Subscriptions will be available later, but we are not sure when. The Fall 2012 issue, which we are desperately trying to get done now, should be available in more retail stores (and we'll tell you which ones closer to the release date).